to preach long intentionally either. And we're just going to spend the time in the word that we spend in the word. But noting that, there are a lot of you, many of you, who are wondering who's going to win the game. And suppose you met somebody who could always tell you the outcome. They could tell you the score and who's going to win. They could tell you that for the World Series each game. They could tell you that for the NBA playoffs. A person could tell you that for, the election coming up tell you which state went to each candidate and if someone could do that and could consistently do that what would you think was going on you would think that that they had some kind of special ability and suppose they could do it years ahead I'm not talking about they could but predict the Super Bowl right now I mean the fact is it's a whole lot easier to predict the winner the Super Bowl now you have a 50-50 chance than it was last year at this time, for this year's Super Bowl. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, end of February last year predicting who the winner of the Super Bowl was was a little harder because you wouldn't have necessarily guessed that the two teams that are in it were necessarily in it. Now what if you start making these predictions 100 years ahead of time, or 200 years ahead of time, or 300 years ahead of time, or 400 years ahead of time? Okay, then something really special is going on there. Someone would have some kind of knowledge that is beyond what human beings normally have. Now the reason I'm saying this is because we're dealing with a passage here in Isaiah that has very much to do with the predictive prophecy of God. In other words, the Lord's going to point this out that the Lord can do and has done this. That the Lord in Micah 5.2 can say, but thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be small among the thousands of Judah. Out of you will come forth, basically the Messiah, right? Now, how long before Jesus' birth in Bethlehem is Micah making that prophecy? Hundreds of years before. Hundreds of years before. Micah is roughly similar to Isaiah in time. So we're talking about 600 years before the birth of Jesus. All right, this is a remarkable thing. It's one of the things that separates God from the gods, if you would, that separates the Lord, the one true and living God, from the gods, the idols. We noted that chapter 42, verses 1 through 4, which I preached the last time I preached through Isaiah, the last time I preached a passage of Isaiah, was what we call the first of the servant songs. Verse 1, Behold My Servant. And we noted that the nature of this servant is very different than the nature of the servant Israel that we find in this passage and other passages. that this is an individual that in fact the book of Acts actually identifies the servant, especially in chapter 52 and 53, as Jesus. And so what we see here is this is a messianic, a prophecy of the Messiah and what he's going to be like. And what we find here is that earlier on in Isaiah we find a prediction of a king who's going to serve Israel by delivering them. Here we find a prediction of a servant who's going to rule Israel. See, earlier on the Messiah is the king who's coming and is going to serve Israel. Now he's the servant who's going to rule Israel. Let's look at verse 5, that's where we will pick up this evening. Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein, I the Lord have called thee, going back to the servant, in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light to the Gentiles. to open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sat in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare, before they spring forth, I tell you of them." So what is the Lord saying here? He's saying, I'm telling you about something that's coming in the future, and I'm telling you about my servant. Now the nature of that servant was set forth in verses 1 through 4, but here we see the Lord saying about his servant. Look, I'm telling you my servant is going to come. And notice what he's going to do. We saw in verses 1 through 4 that he won't bruise a broken reed. Or a bruised reed he won't break, I should say. But that what we see here is, who is this that's saying this? Remember, Isaiah 40, God's love and God's greatness, God's closeness, but yet God's greatness. And so what we find here is the Lord says, notice who he is, he that created the heavens. This is an explanation for God being God. This is proof for God being God. How many of these things are challenged today? The Lord, he that created the heavens. Is that not challenged today? Are there not people out there that think the heavens were not created by God? That they were the result of blind chance? Or sometimes even people who, if you ask them the question, who made the universe, they would say God, but how do they refer to the heavens sometimes? Mother nature, and these kinds of things. Things that are contrary to What the Bible would describe. He that created the heavens and stretched them out. The idea here is how you would take and make the fabric for a tent or something. Our teens went camping this past Friday night into Saturday. Now your tent works best if you can stretch the fabric. Otherwise it just kind of lays in a pile on the ground. And that's not real helpful. Right? You have to get some posts, and you have to get some pegs, you know, stakes to put it in the ground, and you have to stretch the fabric out for it to work right. That's the picture here. He stretched the heavens out. The same way we put up a tent, God created the universe. He stretched out the fabric of the heavens. He that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it. He made the earth, and the things that spring up from it come from Him. Again, how many people are there that think that things just accidentally sprung up? He that giveth breath unto people, upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. Spirit here is the idea of their living souls within them. Not only did he create human beings who walk around and live and have breath and life. All right, now think about this. Every breath that we take is a gift from God. All right, the heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19 says. That when we look up at the sky, hopefully as a Christian, you think something different than the secular world thinks. All right? You look up at it, and yes, there are plenty of scientific explanations for many of the things that we see. In other words, you can explain why the sky is blue from various physics and light and those kinds of things. I understand that. But the fact is, still behind all of that, God made it. All right? I'm not disputing the fact that it's blue for a reason. I'm just for, you know, a describable reason in the physical universe, but I'm saying God still made it. Okay, He made it blue, but why is that pretty? You see, you get my point. Why is that beautiful? He put the stars in their place. Why is that beautiful? Again, as I said before, you know, the difference between a believer and unbeliever is that when we look at God's creation, we look at it and say, God made this. What a great God we have. You know, we don't go to the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls and go, wow, erosion sure is powerful. And it certainly is. But that's God's power, ultimately. He that giveth breath to the people upon it, he gives life and spirit. He gives them a spiritual dimension to those that walk therein. In other words, they're living beings. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, talking about his servant, and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles. Notice this. Now, you have to understand something. There is no great commission in the Old Testament. There is no command to Israel to go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's not there. What were they to do? They were to be a kingdom of priests to God. They were supposed to be the example nation and by their example draw other nations to God. That when Israel, if it were to function correctly, what it was supposed to be was, here is this godly nation that follows the Lord and it would cause others. And we have examples of that in the Bible, don't we? Did not the faith of Israel at times cause those, and of Israelites, cause those who were not believers in the one true and living God to become believers in the one true and living God? Who did Rahab believe in? The Lord. And what does she say when the spies come to her? You know, the city's locked up because we've all heard what God did in Egypt. And then she sees the faith of the spies. And what happens? She becomes a believer in the one true and living God. What about Ruth? Here's a pagan woman coming from Moab. She marries an Israelite man. We have no indication until she pledges her faithfulness to Naomi that she intends to follow the Lord. She was a pagan worshiper of false gods. And she became a worshiper of the one true and living God. through the testimony of Israel. That's what they were to be. Now God has changed that in the New Testament. We have a commandment to go into all the world and preach the gospel. but they were to be this nation. But notice here, verse six, what we see is, what is gonna be true about God's servant? That there are going to be Gentiles that are given to him. He's gonna be a light. He's a covenant of the people, that's the nations. That's the idea, that the people out there, the Gentile nations, for a light of the Gentiles. Jesus is a light to all those other nations in a way that Israel was only imperfectly. Do you see? See, Israel did it imperfectly, and we find these occasional people, but how many millions of Gentiles, many of us fall into that category, have come to Jesus. Have come in saving faith to Jesus Christ. many, many, many of us, for a light of the Gentiles. To open blind eyes, what is Jesus gonna do? To bring out the prisoners from the prison and then them that sat in darkness out of the prison house. I think we don't, we picture our prisons when we read prison, don't we? And undoubtedly, our prisons are not a nice place to be, large walls, you know, encircled by concertino wire and, you know, sitting in a not real nice cell, you know, not having the freedom to go where you would like. But that's not what an ancient prison was. An ancient prison was basically a cave. Okay, a pit. And it was dark and there was no artificial light. And they just locked you in there. And you only ate if somebody brought you food. They didn't feed you and clothe you and everything else. If your clothes wore out, too bad. Your problem. If the rats were running around, too bad. I would dare say that, you know, if there were rats found in our prisons today, that the exterminator is called to come get rid of them. so that people don't get diseases from them. But those in those ancient worlds, a prisoner was in a really terrible situation. So think about this. This is the state of people apart from Christ. They're locked in a prison house. Notice the metaphor that he's using here. They're locked in a prison house of sin. They're prisoners to it. That's how we all are. Apart from Christ, it's only Christ that throws open that door to the prison. And notice how it's also described to open blind eyes. I many of you said how much you appreciate it, but I did as well hearing Micah's testimony this morning of his conversion to come to faith in Christ alone and not trust in a religious system. But you know he described it as his eyes were open you know he went from blindness to seeing. And that's not just true for that religious system. He happened to be Mormon, but that's true. Many of you could give that testimony, that you grew up in a religious system, right? And it had blinded you. Some of you didn't grow up in a religious system, but you grew up in a secularism that had blinded you. That said, hey, live for pleasure. This is what life's about. You know, saving up your money from work so you can get drunk on the weekends. That's what life's about. In fact, they may not say it as overtly as they used to. They tend to appeal more towards senses of humor and things, but I'm sure there's going to be advertisements during the Super Bowl. I'm not advocating that you watch them, but I'm sure there's going to be advertisements that basically say that very thing. All right? There used to be advertisements that say, weekends are made for, and you could fill in the beer label name. Well, what was that saying? It was saying, this is your chance to get drunk. Right? The Bible's very clear that drunkenness is a sin. But what we find is that here blind eyes are opened. He says, I am the Lord, that is my name. Notice he's identifying, he's not just, and this is very controversial for me to say this in our culture, but notice what this is saying, I am the Lord. This is God's, see capital L and then small capital O, small capital R, small capital D, but all in caps just with the first letter largest. That is our English Bible's way of saying, this is God's covenant name in the Old Testament. What we might say is Jehovah or Yahweh. All right. The Hebrew word Yahweh, which is God's covenant name in the Old Testament. He says, I am Yahweh. That is my name. In other words, I am the God of, how does he identify himself to Moses? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's the God who we start to find in Genesis 2-4 when we start to see in the creation account there that God, and people make, scholars have made much over chapter one and two using different names for God. Chapter one of Genesis 2-1-1 says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and we have the most common word for God in the Old Testament, Elohim. It's the Hebrew name for God, all right? And it's only used of God, it's never used of an idol. Baal was never called that, okay? So he's not just a God, but he's God, the one true and living God. And it's a really interesting word, because it's in the plural, and that shows the majesty of God. Not that God is plural, but that he's majestic. Things that are majestic are pluralized in Hebrew. And then, when we get to chapter 2, verse 4, the creation account shifts. And chapter 1 shows God's creation of the universe. Chapter 2 talks about God's creation of humanity. And in 2, verse 4 of Genesis, what we find is it says, the Lord God. This word, right? And what do we find? What is God saying? When God makes man, he uses this covenant name. This is his personal name. He makes covenants with people under this name. I am the Lord, that is my name, is what God is saying here. And the reason I'm saying this is controversial is he doesn't say, I am Buddha, that is my name. He doesn't say, I am Allah, that is my name. He doesn't say, I am the God that everybody is trying to get to and everybody that's genuinely religious is trying to seek and find. That's not what he says. He says, I am the Lord, and that is my name. And notice what he says, and my glory I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. He says, listen, there's only one who's worthy of worship. Only the one true and living God is worthy of worship. People always find something to worship. There are gonna be lots of people worshiping athletes today. Okay? Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not, many of us are, I'm going to probably watch the Super Bowl this evening later. Okay? I enjoy a good football game. But the fact is, there's a difference between enjoying a football game and thinking that football is your life. Okay? There's a difference between that and worshiping and setting up on a pedestal somebody because they can catch a pigskin. Okay? People do that though. All right, the proof of it is, and I don't, I mean, the market bears it out, so I don't mind that it happens, but the fact is, the proof of it is, how much does somebody make? I mean, they can live the most profligate of lifestyle because they can catch a pass. They will get millions of dollars for it, right? And it's because it's a God in our society. God's glory shouldn't be given to people who catch footballs. All right, and I don't care what any athlete says about themselves. And they often make these kinds of braggadocious claims about themselves, don't they? That they stand there and they say, I'm the greatest, I'm, you know, whatever. And, you know, it makes you cringe. Growing up, I grew up near Detroit, and I was a fan of the Detroit Pistons. And I was a fan of the Detroit Pistons professional basketball team in an era when they had a group of players known as the bad boys. All right, they changed NBA basketball. They made it a lot more physical game. But there was one guy, and only people in Detroit liked him. His name was Bill Laimbeer. He was a really dirty basketball player. But he was liked in Detroit because he played for the Detroit Pistons. But the fact was that one time, one of the men on the team was a professing Christian. I don't know if he really was. And when they won their championship, they won in 89 and 90, when they won their championship, one of the players said, I just want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving us the opportunity to win this. OK. It's appropriate. In other words, I think for a Christian athlete to say that, hopefully in their heart, they're saying, look, I want to recognize this talent was given to me. I shouldn't be worshiped, but God should be. Great. But Bill Laimbeer's response is, I'm not gonna thank Jesus, I worked hard for this. Okay? You know, if I was standing next to him in the locker room, I would take a step sideways, because I'd be afraid what was coming. All right? You're not God. That's true about a politician, that's true about an athlete, that's true about a scientist, that's true about anybody who gets accolades. God's not going to give his glory to you or to anyone. He's certainly not gonna give it to what is noted here. I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. You think God is gonna tolerate you worshiping something you made? Why do human beings do this? Because guess what, if you make the God, you control it. If God made you, it goes the other way. Right? You have to answer to Him. If you make your own God, I had a professor in theology in seminary that said, all of us are born with a make your own God kit. Every human being naturally does that. And how many people have you talked to who said, well, my God would never do whatever the Bible says God is like? Well, why? Because they made up their own God in their own mind. That's as much an idol as if you carve something out of wood and put it on a shelf. You just made it up in your own mind. It's your mental construct of idolatry. God will not share his glory with idols. It says, Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them. Now, mark this down. The Babylonians and the ancient peoples, they tried to predict the future. They believed that because of their view of the universe, the gods were part of the universe. Remember this. The one true living God of the Bible is not viewed as part of the universe. He's the creator of the universe. He was here before it, and He is not part of it. Now, He interacts with it. He understands it. He controls it. But He's not part of it. It's not Him, and He's not it. But the ancient gods were viewed that way, and so because that was the case, the view was that if you looked at certain signs in the universe, you could know the future. They do all kinds of things. People still try this. It's even in their newspapers. The ancient practice of astrology was exactly that. If you watch how the stars and the planets move, you can predict the future because these things are tied together. The universe is all interrelated, and so what the planets are doing gives us omens of what's going to happen in the future. They had some other very strange things they would do. We know, for example, that in the story of Joseph, Right? They take Joseph's cup and they put it in his brother Benjamin's sack to frame him, right? To see how the brothers will react if Benjamin gets accused. But the word for that cup in Hebrew is a diviner's cup. Basically what they would do is they'd take a goblet and they'd fill it with wine and they'd put a few drops of oil in it. And oil and wine mix funny together. And by looking at the shapes it would make, they believed they could predict the future. Okay, now I don't know that Joseph, nothing's ever said negative in the Bible. He's one of the few Bible characters, nothing negative is said about him. I'm not sure he used the cup. My guess is when he was given the office, they said, here's your cup, here's your ring, here's your signet, here's your staff, and they gave him all this stuff. But it would have been a sign of power, and it would have usually been made out of gold or something precious, maybe with jewels on it, so it would have been something somebody would want to steal, not only because of its value, but also because it might be magic, okay? Another thing they would do is they would slaughter a lamb or a goat or something like that, and they'd pull out its liver, and by the shape of the liver, they would look at the folds in the shape of the liver and try to predict the future. Okay, this is nothing more than sheer magic, but here's what the Lord is saying. He's saying something very different. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you of them. He's saying the former things I told you about, they happened, and the things that are gonna come, I'm telling you about. I'm predicting them. God isn't predicting them because he's looking at sheep livers and the stars. God is predicting them because he knows them. All right? You see, the sheep livers were wrong sometimes, and the astrology charts are wrong sometimes. Lots of times. And many times they're just, you know, vague kind of things. There will be a change in your life today. Yeah, I went to lunch at Taco Bell instead of McDonald's and so really the astrology chart was right look at that We tend to find things that fit it, right? but the fact is that's not the same as telling me who's gonna Who's gonna be the next president of the United States or 400 years from now where the Messiah would be born? 600 years from now where the Messiah would be born So that's what the Lord is saying here. He is, this is the proof of His being God. Now, ironically, there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians who, there's a theory out there, and I won't get too deep into it, but the belief is that this portion of Isaiah that I'm preaching out of is called Deutero-Isaiah, Second Isaiah, because there is so much in it that's predictive that actually took place that the theory of some Bible scholars is it couldn't have been written beforehand because it's too accurate about what happened later. So what happened is somebody wrote this, pretending that it was written a long time ago predictively, and passed it off that way. But think about that, how credible would this argument be then? In other words, if you have to fake God's predictive power, how real is your God? See, to do that really goes against the whole argument of Isaiah. In other words, and I think for us, at least as moderns, it just seems somehow dishonest, right? It seems like a forgery, seems like a fake. But here the Lord is saying, assuming, and I'm going to assume this, that the Bible is the word of God and this came from God's mouth, and Isaiah actually wrote it ahead of time, that what the Lord is saying is, look, I predict the future and that's the proof that I'm not an idol, but I'm the one true and living God. Verse 10, we have a shift in tone here. How is Israel supposed to respond to God and who he is and his servant? Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea and all that is therein, the isles and the inhabitants thereof. Now notice this, the isles and the inhabitants thereof, this is the nations. Israelites for the most part were landlubbers. They did not have a big navy. They didn't do a whole lot of trading. They usually paid other people to do that for them, the Phoenicians. We know that Solomon builds a fleet, but he gets the Phoenicians' help to do it. So they're just not mariners, just not what their nature was. There's some historical peoples that were known for traveling across the sea, and others are just simply not. Some known for building boats, and others not. So you think in history, you say, well, the English were pretty much known for having a great navy, weren't they? When you live on an island, that helps. The Portuguese were known for their exploration in the early days of the age of exploration and navigation, and they were seafaring peoples. The Vikings were known as being seafaring peoples, right? So the islands, those are the Gentile nations. These are the people out there that are sailing around in boats. These are the Greeks. These are the Phoenicians. These are these people. That's who he's talking about here. Notice what he says. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea. Who is he calling on to sing new praises to God? Those Gentiles that he said that his servant was going to gain. That he was going to be a light to. Notice something here too. This is a sing unto the Lord a new song is really a reference to a new kind of song. It's new in character. Okay. In other words, when you start believing in Jesus, when you come in saving faith to Jesus Christ, do you sing about different things? Right? Okay. I mean, what kind of things, think about this, there's different settings, what kind of things do people sing about in different settings? And what kind of things naturally come from the heart of people when they worship the one true and living God? And there are many of you that would give this testimony. That you weren't really a singer before. And I don't mean now that you're a professional singer and have a great voice. Some of us, you know, we should sing a solo on a hill far away. But the fact is that you became a Christian and you started wanting to sing. Not because you wanted to show off for other people, it was just coming from your heart. Right? I mean, that's the case, that's the way it is. People sing about what they love. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age that's very negative and doesn't give a whole lot of, the current worldview of the world doesn't give a lot of hope to people. I mean, basically, if you tell people there's no, you can't really be sure that there's a God and you can't really know what's gonna happen to you after you die, so just live for as much as you can get now, what is there to sing about? You're just gonna become dirt What is there to sing about? And so what are the songs that people sing about? They sing about the hedonism that they're participating in, and they sing about, you know, depressing things, or ugly things. All right? This is why there's a genre of music known as death metal. I mean, that's not naturally something people go around singing about. Loud, blaring music that talks about death and destruction. All right, what does that come out of? That comes out of anger and frustration at life. That doesn't come out of, I love Jesus and so I'll sing about death and destruction, right? You get my point? In other words, the worldview has impacted that music. What you love, if there's nothing left to love, then you bemoan that. That's why there's dirges and other kinds of music. And so what happens is what we sing about, we sing about the Lord, we sing about His redemption, we sing a new song. What do we see? Revelation 5 that I preached on this morning. Here's these group of angels, these 24 elders and the four cherubim they appear to be, that what do they do before the throne of God? They sing a song. Worthy is the Lamb. Right? To receive glory and honor and power and blessing. So He's calling on the nations to sing His praises. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice. The villages that Kedar doth inhabit, let the inhabitants of the rock sing. Let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord and declare His praise in the islands. And let me say this, there is a trend even among Christian churches to downplay singing. I'm not saying the churches have given up on music, but there's a lot of churches that what happens is a few professionals stand up front and sing and everybody else just kind of stands there and listens to them. That's what's going on in our churches today. It's going on enough that people from all different backgrounds of Christian music are saying, where did our hymns go? And I don't just mean by that hymns in the sense of traditional music, but you actually have people out there who perform contemporary music who are now writing hymns that a congregation can sing because they realize that the average pop song is very difficult for a congregation of people to sing, and they realize we've lost something as a church when we don't sing together. Colossians says, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, making a melody in your heart to the Lord. In other words, singing God's praise is what naturally happens from the heart of a believer. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to be to the Lord. All right? Being observers is what Americans do when we go to a place that looks a little like a theater, right? And it's one of the things I've tried to be clear about over the years is that even though this might look a little theater-ish and we have a platform and I'm up a little higher and there's lights on me and those kinds of things, the fact is I'm not performing, I'm proclaiming. And that when anybody gets up here, we had two young ladies sing for us tonight, they were leading in worship, they weren't performing. Okay? That's why we put the words on the walls. so that you can meditate on those things. Not so you can go, wow, that person has a lot better voice than me. No, no, no. So that we can say, praise God, that's true. All right? God's not going to give his glory even to Christian performers, by the way. And there's some who want it. I don't know everybody's motives, but there are some who have You know, built a following around themselves that's about their talent rather than pointing people to the Lord. And it's a real shame that our churches are losing this. In other words, what is Isaiah predicting? He's saying there's going to be a time God's going to call the Gentiles to sing his praises. Verse 13, the Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up a jealousy like a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. Now what is this talking about? What are the Israelites going to be worried about, the people of Judah going to be worried about at this time? God has predicted leading up to chapter 39 that because of Israel's sin and Judah's sin, God is going to send the Assyrians and eventually the Babylonians against them and he's going to take them into captivity. And even at this time, the nation of Judah, even though Jerusalem doesn't fall, there are many cities that fall and the Assyrians have taken people captive back to Assyria, even from Judah, even before it falls. And they've certainly done it to Israel in the north. Here's the issue. God made a promise to Abraham. Through your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Well, what happens if that seed gets taken back to Assyria and transplanted everywhere else and starts intermarrying with all these pagan nations? What's going to happen to God's seed and his lineage and his line? Where's the Messiah going to come from? That is all in danger if they don't come back. And what we find here is what the Lord is saying is, this is how the ancient peoples viewed it, when a nation won a war, it's because they had more powerful gods than the nation they were going to war against. But here God wants us to know something. God predicted all of those things. He didn't lose the battle to Baal of the Babylonians. He didn't lose the battle to Baal when the Canaanites won or to whatever pagan deities when a pagan country happened to come in and win the battle. He didn't do that. In fact, he describes these people as doing his bidding. that Nebuchadnezzar is doing exactly what God wanted him to do, to bring God's chasing on the children of Israel. So he goes out as a mighty man, he's going to prevail against his enemies. Alright, here's the metaphor. When a woman is expecting a child, I realize there are sometimes morning sicknesses and things that go on, but generally there's this time of kind of just progression that goes on. But then one day, the baby's born, right? Here's what the Lord's saying, I've been patient for a long time and the birth's about to happen. That's the metaphor. In other words, I've been patient for a long time and now I'm gonna break forth and I'm gonna go to war. I will make waste mountains and hills, and I will dry up all their herbs, and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools, and I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them and not forsake them." Here's what the Lord says, I'm going to bring my people back. I'm not going to let them be absorbed by a Syria or a Babylon. He's going to go out like a warrior and he's going to make it happen. And you know what? It does happen. In fact, we've already looked at the fact that there's places in Isaiah that he says, my servant Cyrus. And Cyrus, the Persian ruler, eventually is the one who gives the command for the Israelites to be able to come back to their land. God does do all of this. He goes to war against those pagan gods. How great was Bel when the Persians defeated him, but God says, Cyrus, this pagan king who doesn't know anything of the Lord, is my servant. Not because he was serving the Lord knowingly, but he was doing God's will. Verse 17, they shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images that say unto molten images, ye are our gods. All these pagan nations that are serving Bel and Baal and Marduk and all of these gods and goddesses are going to be ashamed because their gods are going to be defeated. Hear ye deaf and look ye blind that ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? Now he says, but wait a second, who's the real blind one? He's not talking about the servant in the first part of this. He's going back to Israel as his servant. This is not the individual here and we're going to see that because it's going to bear out by what it says. or deaf is my messenger that I sent. Who is blind is he that is perfect, and blind is the Lord's servant, seeing many things, but thou observest not, opening the ears, but he heareth not. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable. But this is a people robbed and spoiled. They are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses. Here's his servant. What are they? They're robbed and spoiled. They're hiding. They are for a prey, and none delivereth for a spoil, and none saith restore. Now what was God's law supposed to do? Supposed to give life, right? We see God's grace. Israel and Judah haven't repented yet. When Isaiah's writing this, they're still following their idols. But what does God do? God acts first. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Even when God created Israel, what came first, the exodus or the giving of the law? Did God show His grace in the Exodus, or did He give the commandments to obey first? They say, if you keep my law, I'll bring you out of Egypt, or did He bring them out of Egypt and say, I have redeemed you, you are mine? He redeemed them first, right? God's grace comes first. And doesn't Satan attack that very idea? How many times does he say this? Think of it. What does he tell Eve in the garden? Has God really said you can't eat from any of the trees in the garden? Did God say that? No, that's a lie. He's mischaracterizing God. In other words, God's not very good to you, is he? He won't let you eat from any of these trees. Eve says, no, no, no, that's not true. We can eat from all the trees except for the one of the knowledge of good and evil. And what happens? She says, This to Satan, and Satan says, yeah, but God only tells you that because he knows, she says, because if we eat it, we'll die. And he says, you won't die. You certainly won't die. God's only telling you that because he's trying to scare you off because he knows if you eat it, you'll be like him. In other words, God's grace came at a price. There's a hidden cost to God's goodness to you. Now, who's really lying? Satan, right? He's saying God's grace came at a price. There's a hidden cost to it. God's afraid of what you'll get if you eat that, so he's withholding. He's giving you all these other good things to pacify you, but the real good thing, he's keeping you from having. In other words, you can't trust God's grace. It's backhanded. Isn't this the exact same thing he says about Job? All right, I don't know if we've ever thought about this, but Satan appears. Job says, the time came for the sons of God, which is the normal Old Testament way to refer to by angels, to appear before the Lord. Now I would contend this was both fallen and unfallen angels giving their reports before the Lord, so the most powerful of the fallen angels comes before the Lord, Satan, the adversary, and he has to give an answer, but he doesn't like having to give an answer to the Lord, does he? So the Lord says, Satan, where have you been? Satan's answer is basically, he says, walking to and fro on the earth, that's basically around Lord Satan, where have you been? Oh, I've been around. Oh, if you've been around, have you seen my servant Job, a righteous man? And what's Satan's answer? Yeah, but does Job serve you for nothing? Look at all the great things you've given him. Look at all the great things you've given him. That's why he serves you. The Lord says, okay, I'll give you freedom in this regard. Go ahead and stretch forth your hand against him and you can take everything he has, but don't hurt him physically. What happens? Job still serves the Lord, right? Then he comes back and he says, have you considered my servant Job? And he says, yeah, but skin for skin, everything a man has he'll give for his own life and health. Let me afflict him with disease and he'll curse you. Does Job curse God? No, even though his wife encourages him to. Curse God and die. Look how bad life is. We've lost everything, and you're sitting here on a pile of trash, scraping your sores. It's just time to die. Curse God and be done with it. Let Him kill you. Job doesn't do that. See, because God's grace in Job's life wasn't there because Job had done something for God. It was there because God had been good to Job. I noted that even this morning in Micah's testimony. That Micah, when he talked about his conversion from Mormonism, I was really astounded by the courage to stand up in front of all those Mormon missionaries and say that he was now believing in Jesus alone for his salvation and not good works. For a 21-year-old or whatever he was, 20, 21-year-old, that's pretty remarkable. Okay? I think a lot of people just would have kind of gone with the motions and then just disappeared. But he actually stood up and told them the truth, and there's a member of the Adams Road Group now that is a believer because he heard that testimony partially. But when he walked away from everything in Mormonism, he thought he was giving up everything, right? Thought he'd lose his girlfriend. Thought he'd lose his family. Thought he'd lose his income. He knew he was losing his scholarship to Brigham Young. He knew he was losing everything. And he followed the Lord anyway. The Lord very graciously gave him some of those things back, didn't he? Parents, girlfriend eventually became his wife, she was converted, et cetera. Now, and that doesn't happen for everybody. Some people follow Christ, then it costs nearly everything you have. But in some cases, God, you know, you're just willing to say, Lord, if I lose all this, you're still worth more. And you follow him, and then in some cases, he gives you back. Because God is gracious, and his grace doesn't come at a price. You see, the redemption that took place in his heart happened before. Happened before that it was God's work in his heart that caused him to be willing to say, if I have to lose everything, Jesus is worth more than all of it. But Israel is the one who's described here as being blind. But this is a people robbed and spoiled, verse 23, among whom, who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil in Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon them the fury of his anger and the strength of battle, and it hath set him on fire round about. Ye he knew not, and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart. Lord brought all kinds of chastening. I mean, they'd been following idols since the days of the judges on and off, right? I mean, one of the astonishing things to me is the story of Josiah, right? Hezekiah is in here in Isaiah, but later on we get to Josiah. Hezekiah has a son who's the most wicked king to ever rule Judah, Manasseh. Manasseh has a grandson named Josiah who's one of the best kings to ever rule Judah, along with Hezekiah. But when they find the book of the law, when Josiah's having them renovate the temple, we find out that they obey the law in a way that it hadn't been obeyed since when? Since like the days of judges, right? Joshua. In other words, it was as soon as the generation of the judges came along and it started to slip, even in the days of David, some of that stuff was not regained. That's why David doesn't know how to move the ark the first time. Think about that. Why do they put it on an ox cart? The Bible's very clear about how the ark was supposed to be moved. Well, why did David not know it? Because Israel had sinned and idolatry had come in and they'd been fighting idolatry for years and years. And they'd forgotten some things. God graciously restored it to them in the days of Josiah, but yet the people were still, as by and large, even though the leadership was following the Lord, the people were still giving themselves to idolatry. And let me say this as well. I'm going to admit, we're not Israel, and so I'm very cautious about that, and not trying to say that the promises of God to Israel that regard to keeping God's law apply to us. But there is an example there, that in the days of Josiah, the leadership of the nation turned to the Lord, and the Lord gave some grace for a short time, but God's judgment still came because the nation itself never repented. And so I'm all for praying for our coming elections that we would get good leaders, but the fact is, unless America's heart changes, a good leader will only give us a little reprieve. Okay? That's just the nature of it. Unless America's heart changes, the Lord will give us only a little reprieve. Now thank God that he is gracious and his grace is real. So I'm very confident that the gospel is going to continue to move forward. How he will do that and what that will look like and what the future looks like, I leave that in his hands. I'm not the Lord. I can't predict the future. But there is one true and living God. And he's worthy of our worship and he's worthy of our proclamation. He's worthy of singing a new song about him. And he has not been defeated. That's just as true today. All right? I know, many of you remember these days. We've lived through days when America seemed to be having resurgencies in Christian practice. It's interesting to me how many people I talk to in this area, I talk to pastors of other churches, have lunch with them and other things, and we talk and they say, well, how old is Calvary? And I say, oh, 1953 we started. And they say, really, our church started in 52, or ours started in 54, or ours started in 58, or something like that. Well, why did that happen? Well, one, some demographic reasons of the citrus industry growing around here. But second, if you study the 1950s in America, the percent of people that attended churches went up. There were more people attending church. So more churches were needed. And a lot of churches started at that time. Guess when else that took place? The late 70s and early 80s. And I've met a lot of people and their pastor, I've met pastor friends and say, when did your church start? Oh, I'm the third pastor. The first pastor started the church in the 80s. Okay, and many of you've lived through these eras. And you remember this and you can say, I remember a day when, you know, everybody went to church, it seemed like. Now I don't know what the Lord's going to do and I'm not going to claim He's going to do this again, but the fact is that the one true and living God is able to do that. That those works of grace of God in our nation have happened time after time. It could happen again. I don't know. I don't know what He's going to do, but this I know. I'm going to keep preaching the gospel. That whether I'm living in Jeremiah's day where everybody's rejecting God's word, I'm still going to be Jeremiah and proclaim it. or whether I'm living in a day of more like Josiah's day, where the king hears, I'm still going to proclaim it. Because God is still worthy of a new song. The one true and living God is still worthy of our worship. And whether or not he decides to bring our nation back, and I don't mean to say this in the wrong way, I don't buy into the idea that somehow there was some time in American history when just everybody loved God. I know that's not the case. All right, I could ask someone here who are charter members, were there bad things and sins going on in Winter Garden in the 1950s? Certainly, of course. Maybe it wasn't as overt, maybe more people were ashamed of it, but did people get drunk in the 1950s? People, yeah, you were here, some of you remember it. Did people, you know, we could go through a list of sins, we could go through the Ten Commandments, did they steal? Some of you had stuff stolen. We could go through these eras and say, stuff still happened. People were still sinners. So I'm not calling us to a good old days. What I'm calling us to is say, the Lord is in control of these things. He knows the future. He's the one worthy of our worship, and whether we're Christians in America enjoying the blessings of American freedom to serve the Lord, or whether we're Christians in Iraq being persecuted by ISIS, He's still the same God, and He's still worthy of our worship, and He's still worthy of singing a new song to. If persecution comes our way in America, we're still going to sing His praises. And there's a lot of things that we may have to take a stand on in the future. You know, I think I have to take a stand, biblically, on what marriage is. The culture's going to do what the culture does, but the fact is that if somebody comes and asks me to do a marriage that's unbiblical, I can't do it. My conscience won't let me perform it. I might have a lot of different responses to it. Okay? In other words, I might decide I'm just not doing any marriages anymore, so I don't get accused of, you know, discriminating and things, but the fact is, I hope that doesn't come, but if that comes, I've already made up my mind what stance I'm going to take on it. Because the Bible's already answered it for me. It's astonishing to me that we've got presidential candidates that are talking about drafting women. Now, women have the same standing before the Lord. Women have equality under the law in our culture. Women are capable of doing an awful lot of things that we've often restricted them from doing. But my personal opinion is this, and I think it's based on scripture, that it would be shameful for us fathers to send our daughters to defend us. to take up arms to defend us. Okay? I'm not saying it's shameful for young ladies to serve in the military. I thank the Lord for many young ladies. My grandmother, I have three grandparents that served as veterans of World War II. My grandmother was in the auxiliary of the Coast Guard and was stationed in New Orleans during World War II. Served our country that way. All right, I have two grandparents still living, but the two that passed were both World War II vets. Both had 21-gun salutes and taps at their funerals, and one of them was my grandmother, who was a veteran of the Coast Guard. Thank the Lord. I'm not against women serving, even in sometimes dangerous situations, but I personally think that the idea that we're going to draft our daughters That violates the distinctions that the Bible makes between men and women. God has a created order. He made men, men, and women, women. And that's not an excuse for saying, okay, women are foolish, or they're not as smart, or they should be paid less, or anything of that nature, okay? It doesn't mean they can be abused, or bought and sold, or treated as property. I'm not saying any of that. I'm all for women serving in the church. I'm all for women serving our country. I would be fine even with a woman president if she had biblical values. But, as a man, and I don't think this is just sexism, I think it's informed my understanding of the scripture, I don't have any daughters, I have three sons. But, as a man, I can't see asking my daughters, or my sister, to defend me. I'm sorry, if that day comes and I'm in my 50's or 60's or 70's, I'd rather take up arms at that age than send our ladies to do that. I just don't think that's right biblically. All right? I don't know if you've thought through this, but God didn't make men and women different. Those differences are good. I'm not sure they still say it, but the French used to say, viva la difference, which means long live the difference between men and women. Okay? It's a good thing, right? Women want men to be men, and men want women to be women. Okay, so I remember talking to a young man years ago, and he was still single at the time, and I said to him, you know, there's several nice young ladies in the church, if you considered any of them. He's like, well, but I'm into rock climbing and these kinds of things, and they're not into that stuff. I said, you need a buddy to do that with you. That's not what you need a wife to do. If you got a wife who's into rock climbing, okay, thank God, great, but that's not what you need a wife for. You don't need a wife to rock climb with you. Get a buddy to go rock climbing. Okay, your wife doesn't have to play tackle football with you. Okay? Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here, though. Generally, and God created them this way, women do a much better job at nurturing than men do. And the proof of this is when you were a small child and you skinned your knee, who did you run to? Mommy, right? Because she just was a much better comforter. You know what my dad said? Walk it off. You know? Get the garden hose and washed your knee off, washed the blood off and said, go play. You know, you're three years old, crying, and he's like, walk it off, kid. You gotta be a man someday. Now, my sister, it was a different story. He did respond differently. But the fact is, it's the way it was. And honestly, you know, even some of the things that are, I don't mean to be commenting on the news now, but these are the proof of the shifted worldview that's moved away from the Bible. The fact is that, I'll give you two contrasts. New Year's Eve, what happened in Cologne, Germany? A group of men from a different culture and a different religious background from Islam decided that women who weren't Muslim women were allowed to be abused because they weren't Muslims. And they were doing all kinds of nasty things to these women just because they were walking by and they didn't approve of the fact that they didn't have headscarves on or something like that. And it happened to many, many, many women. Well, where were the German men? That's the question I want to ask. And I'm not saying this because Klapperich is a German name. I'm not saying this. But it's the decay of Western culture that the German men didn't stand up to these thugs. You know what? A couple days ago in Russia, a group of, again, same background, a group of immigrants who had gone to Norway and been thrown out because they were causing trouble there. They were from a Muslim background, thought the same thing about Russian women. And they did this in a nightclub in Russia, and a handful, pretty big, more than a handful, a group of Russian men took them outside the club and nearly beat them to death because they said, you won't treat our Russian women this way. All right, I'm not advocating beating people to death, but what I'm saying is, as men, we ought to be willing to protect our children, our wives, and those kinds of things. And the reason we start talking about some of these things is because we've made men who, as C.S. Lewis used to say, who don't have chests. You couldn't pin a medal on their chest because they don't have one. They're cowards. There was a day when, and this is still the case, I think, we've got men in our church who've, I understand that once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine. All right, unless you've been dishonorably discharged. But we've got men who served in the Marines or currently are in the Marines. Josue in our church served in the Marines. In fact, he's away this weekend on drill. But the fact is, what do you learn in the military? That cowardice is actually worse than death, right? It's worse to be a coward than to die. Because the only way you keep the enemy from killing your grandmother and your children is by not being a coward. And I'm not getting into politics. I don't want you to misunderstand this. What I'm getting into is the worldview, and that is the one true and living God made men and made women. And the fact is that we can't just blur those lines. All right, I had a pastor friend, this is a ridiculous example, but I had a pastor friend who had a woman in his church come to him and the man in his church who was helping with all kinds of things in the church and was on the platform sometimes leading singing and giving announcements and reading the scripture reading, this woman came and said, my husband has come to me and said he wants to become a woman. And he wants to stay married but live like we're sisters together. And she said, what am I supposed to do? The pastor said, don't go along with that. And he talked to this man and the man said, you know, I won't dress like a woman at church, but when I go to work and other places, I'm going to dress like a woman. But I'd like to continue to do the scripture reading and the song reading. The pastor said, we can't do that. That's at war with God's created order. God made men, men and women, women. And there's lots of passages in the scripture that command not to blur those lines. Okay? And these are things that as Christians we might be persecuted for, but if we get persecuted for it, rejoice, because great is your reward in heaven. It might cost us something this side of eternity, but rejoice. The one true and living God, he's still in control. The gods of this world are not winning. God might let His chastening come on His people, He might let it come on our nation, He might let it happen. Things like this happen, and people who seem to be wicked may seem to prevail, but the fact is that it's not outside of God's control. He's the one true and living God. He's worthy of our worship. He's worthy of our confidence. The next time we look into Isaiah, we're gonna look at chapter 43, where the Lord then starts to talk about how He's going to encourage His nation, His people. All right, a very encouraging passage of scripture. But I hope this has been a help to you tonight, that the Lord's servant, Jesus, came to rescue the Gentiles, of whom we are a great part. And he's in control of things. He's not like one of the idols. He knows the future, and he's in control of it. And he's worthy of our worship. Let's pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege that it is to come before you